My best girl friend has a 14 month old and whenever I see them together I can't stop watching the way they interact. Last time she was over she had spent a long time getting the baby down for a nap and when she came out of the room and sat down about a minute later the baby cried out. She stood up and was all exasperated and kinda stomped off down the hall. But when she got to the baby she picked her up and was just rocking and cuddling her, not mad at all. And that little baby just lays on her mom like she has nothing to fear in the world. That unconditional love, a safe person, a trustworthy person, I didn't have that either. Thank god that my friends baby knows nothing but love and acceptance and safety. She is such a happy and calm little baby who is going to grow up trusting that whatever she does her mother loves her, and she will grow up believing that the world should be kind to her and she will fight back when it isn't. We both deserved that, husky, and it's shitty that we had mothers who couldn't deliver.

i think my mother was a good one - until she married husband #2. something in her died when my real father died (i was almost 3). i was almost 6 when she re-married. then i lost her completely - as far as emotional connection. and she just went through the motions. looked VERY good from the outside - overcompensation - but empty. i was never physically hungry or dirty or badly clothed or sheltered. we were affluent and had the status props. but i needed so much more. and all i got was the step-dad's cruelty.

lee

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"My experience has shown me that I all too often tend to deny that which lies behind, but as I still believe, that which is denied cannot be healed." Brennan Manning, "All is Grace - A Ragamuffin Memoir"

My mother never sexually abused me (but loves if not enjoys mental torment), sexual abuse was from other women ("friends" of my mother, neighbors, etc), my mother rather instilled in my heart and mind that being male = all the evil in the world. Granted she was raped by her father (my grandfather) throughout her youth thus in hindsight it's not a shocker she would be this way. She has such a problem she used to talk about Megan....my sister. Problem with this is Megan was NEVER born - she was stillborn couple years before I came around. Hard to live up to a corpse but was compared to "Megan" all the time (apparently Megan is a talented and gifted stillborn). She was so wrapped up in her world she didn't know friends/neighbors and her son's pediatrician were sexually abusing her living son. Foolishly when i was able to talk about it I went to her...bad idea. She didn't believe me and I was punished for "lying". Constantly was punished for "lying" about the truth. Now I cannot stand being in the same room with her, feel she is as bad as those who abused me.

Your story about being instilled with a self-hatred is something I identify with. It has taken a lot of time, patience, and grueling steps in and out of my own darkness, but I do feel a lot less of it now.

There were years that I thought that nothing short of sex change would help me be a man. These were fleeting thoughts and feelings that I didn't pay much mind to, but now I realize what had let up to them and what had slowly, over time, instilled this in my heart and mind. Inside it all was my own kind of fear that I wasn't paying attention to.

It's been an ongoing battle talking to my family and trying to have good communication with my kids' mom. There are moments when I could go either way: replace my male feelings with the safer and more familiar female opinion which I was quietly asked to uphold, or remind myself of what a man feels, since I am one. Each time I give myself the space to do that, it's like some new soil is watered and the roots of who I am are nourished. It ain't easy by any means, dealing with all this confusion. But staying grounded in this reality is possible, and can provide some stability and perspective to begin the healing process.

I understand the difficulty of getting others to understand. My mother recently described to me her own sexual abuse. Now I can see how her blinders were formed.

In the end, however, it is up to myself to enjoy who I am and thrive in it. This has been a good place to explore what it means to me as I hear the same from others.

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